In everyday life, we use language as if our words describe established concepts and ideas in a never-changing fashion. In fact, the meaning of individual words is rarely set in stone for all time. Our English language evolves from generation to generation, and sometimes even more quickly than that.
Take, for example, the word “queer.” When my mother was a child, the word was used regularly to describe anyone who was odd or unusual —the crazy uncle living in the attic, the guy down the street who wore heavy coats in August. But by the time I came along, in the 1960s, the definition of queer had been transformed almost completely. By then, the word was used pretty much exclusively to describe someone who was a homosexual.
Within a dozen years, however, “queer” fell by the wayside, only to be replaced by “gay,” which quickly came to signify every aspect of homosexual life. Funny, if my mother were still here (she would have been 101 last month), she’d be totally confused by now; in her heyday, being “gay” was simply all about being lively and happy.
For some odd reason, I found myself thinking lately the same way about the word “silo.” Mr. Webster tells us “silo” is a word of nineteenth-century origin, derived from Spanish, one that describes “a pit to put corn in.” By the time I drove around rural New England as a child with my parents, silos had gone vertical, becoming places where farmers could keep hay dry during long, wet winters. Then it wasn’t too long before silos went back underground, becoming places where we kept our nuclear missiles, ever ready to take to the Cold War skies to reap mutually assured destruction.
Today, the word “silo” has evolved yet again, describing something entirely abstract. That abstraction started in business schools maybe a decade ago, with the word used to describe a management structure that was full of what my parents might have called dead-end streets. (Wiktionary helpfully provides an example: “Our networking is organized in silos, and employees lose time manually transferring data.”) Only in the past few years has the word “silo” morphed into something a bit more sinister. Now silo describes, says Wiki, “a self-enclosed group of like-minded individuals, usually connected through the internet.”
For better or worse, silos are beginning to dot the cyberspace in which we now all dwell, in the same way that old-style silos once dotted the Wisconsin countryside. It’s not exactly what the early developers of the World Wide Web expected; they yearned to perfect a platform that would share near-infinite volumes of information and knowledge with anyone and everyone who could get access to a connection.
Alas, that wonderful World Wide Web is fast becoming, rather frighteningly, a world full of silos, a place where groups come together, not to learn something new, but to reinforce the beliefs and predilections they already possess. A cacophony of rowdy voices now reverberates through Facebook newsfeeds, and presidential tweets rattle the windows. Given that the current political climate is perhaps as toxic as it has been at any time since the eve of the Civil War, it’s hard to fathom where exactly we as a nation go from here.
For what it’s worth, we here at Memphis magazine like to think we are building, online and in print, an entirely different kind of silo. Yes, you can be sure that subscribers and regular readers of this magazine come from just about every spot along this country’s political and cultural spectrum. But they come to Memphis on account of one great commonality of interest: They care about what happens here. Hate it sometimes; love it more times; our city is for all of us a very special place.
We hope this March issue — our fifth annual “Faces and Places” issue — gives you a sense of just how special and unique Memphis is. Take a close look at the work of photographer Brandon Dill, a regular contributor to this magazine. I think you will agree his portfolio certainly captures the “face” of our city.
Black, white, pink, or purple, we all are devout Memphians. We know our metropolis is far from perfect, but we cherish it all the same, warts and all. And hopefully, Memphis is and will remain our own special silo, the magazine our readers still call home.